antoecian adj.

word-forming element of Greek origin meaning "against, opposed to, opposite of, instead," shortened to ant- before vowels and -h-, from Old French anti- and directly from Latin anti-, from Greek anti (prep.) "over, against, opposite; instead, in the place of; as good as; at the price of; for the sake of; compared with; in opposition to; in return; counter-," from PIE *anti "against," also "in front of, before" (from root *ant- "front, forehead," with derivatives meaning "in front of, before"), which became anti- in Italian (hence antipasto) and French.

It is cognate with Sanskrit anti "over, against," and Old English and- (the first element in answer). A common compounding element in Greek, in some combinations it became anth- for euphonic reasons. It appears in some words in Middle English but was not commonly used in English word formations until modern times. In a few English words (anticipate, antique) it represents Latin ante.

In noun compounds where it has the sense of "opposed to, opposite" (Antichrist, anti-communist) the accent remains on the anti-; in adjectives where it retains its old prepositional sense "against, opposed to," the accent remains on the other element (anti-Christian, anti-slavery).

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "clan, social unit above the household."

It forms all or part of: antoecian; bailiwick; Brunswick; diocese; ecology; economy; ecumenical; metic; nasty; parish; parochial; vicinage; vicinity; viking; villa; village; villain; villanelle; -ville; villein; Warwickshire; wick (n.2) "dairy farm."

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit visah "house," vit "dwelling, house, settlement;" Avestan vis "house, village, clan;" Old Persian vitham "house, royal house;" Greek oikos "house;" Latin villa "country house, farm," vicus "village, group of houses;" Lithuanian viešpats "master of the house;" Old Church Slavonic visi "village;" Gothic weihs "village."

late 14c., "persons who dwell on the opposite side of the globe;" from 1540s as "country or region on the opposite side of the earth," from Latin antipodes "those who dwell on the opposite side of the earth," from Greek antipodēs, plural of antipous "with feet opposite (ours)," from anti "opposite" (see anti-) + pous "foot" (from PIE root *ped- "foot").

Yonde in Ethiopia ben the Antipodes, men that haue theyr fete ayenst our fete. [Bartholomew Glanville, "De proprietatibus rerum," c. 1240, translated by John of Trevisa c. 1398]

Belief in them could be counted as a heresy in medieval Europe, when the orthodox supposition was that the whole of the earth was a flat surface. Not to be confused with antiscii "those who live on the same meridian on opposite side of the equator," whose shadows fall at noon in the opposite direction, from Greek anti- + skia "shadow." Also see antoecian. Related: Antipodist.